by Deck Davis
Lushen was built in an endangered forest, with the houses crafted lovingly around the trees without harming them in any way. Unlike Kinohelm’s claim to be a hundred percent green, Lushen didn’t lie. The Lushen officials published quarterly reports detailing all their activities, and my pre-battle research showed that their latest report listed a 97% green score. Not bad at all.
In the Lushen VBR, I did a little better. Learning my lesson from Kinohelm, I tried to shake off my team habits and start thinking as a soloer. There was nobody to watch my back anymore.
Placed: 12 / 75
Reward: 201 bits
Experience gained: 42% [19% to Level 1]
3) Crowstead
Ladder: Coal – solo
User notes:
Crowstead reminded me of Black Gull in a lot of ways, given that it was a market town full of exotic wares. Unlike Black Gull, the Crowstead authorities didn’t feel the need to hide. Their market wasn’t only above ground, but it had signs posted for miles around. It was an exciting place, full of stores that sold exotic spices, gel-powered drones, and fashion from far-flung corners of the land. On the west end, a theatre troupe performed a pantomime about the corruption and fall of Overseer Landon, who had been replaced recently by Sternbuck.
Crowstead had a perfect economic system, really. They invested a lot of money into their VBR map to attract fighters and spectators. This influx of people on battle day meant more shoppers in their market. Thus, even the coal-league battles in Crowstead were well-organized. It was the trivial things that impressed me, like a digital mainnet link that fed each fighter information about where to go, when the battle was going to start, and so on. And the selection of complimentary snacks in the fighter’s mess was out of this world.
It was in Crowstead that I started to feel like I was getting to grips with things. I was using Song of Dread at the right times and getting my skill order down to perfection. It was important, you see—your skill order. It was maybe the most important thing in a VBR. There were four skills to unlock for any avatar, and you unlocked them by killing monsters within a VBR and leveling up. Your choice after a level-up was which order to unlock your skills in. Did you go for skill 4 first? Skill 2? Not only that, but you could also spend your level-up points by upgrading an already-unlocked skill. So, if I had Song of Dread unlocked at level one, then when I hit level two, I could upgrade it if I wanted, increasing its effectiveness and lessening its mana cost.
In Crowstead, I settled on my skill order. I unlocked Whistle of Fire first, which gave me a base fire attack so that I could fight NPC monsters from afar. After that, I unlocked Song of Thunder and Fury, which gave me a devastating lightning attack that could take out entire groups of monsters at a time. Next up was Bardic Dread, which was useful in the later stages of a battle when the waves closed in and shrunk the battlefield, meaning that when I sang my lyrics it was more likely they would infect many players. Lastly, I unlocked Tune of Vitality.
Placed: 7 / 100
Reward: 1504 bits
A pretty good reward. It was a pity that my after-battle report showed that I’d fractured my leg in battle, meaning that I had to pay 234 bits to heal my bard. Still, I came out with 1266.
Experience: 41%
*Level up to Level 1!*
- Rune slot unlocked
After Kinohelm, Lushen, and Crowstead, I started feeling positive. I was getting to grips with the bard. I’d earned a few bits, and I had unlocked a rune slot. Things were starting to look up. As I checked my holo-calendar each day and saw the day of the New Eden VBR qualifiers looming closer, I started to feel excited.
And then I went to Sootstein, and everything changed.
Chapter Nine
Sootstein was a newcomer on the VBR circuit, but there was a lot of buzz on the mainnet about it. It was a colony that specialized in renewable energy, from mining viscus under the ground to ship to the New Eden factories, to researching the latest solar techniques, to even harvesting heat from the geysers that dotted the ever-icy lands around the colony.
There was no biking to Sootstein, not unless I wanted to freeze to death half-way there. Instead, I boarded an s-train and took it to Barrem before catching an altogether different type of train to Sootstein. This looked like an old-fashioned steam locomotive, with its exhausts, flaky painting, humongous engine, and large coal storage box near the front. It was pretty much an antique, a machine from another time, only it had been modified, as had the tracks it ran on. The train to Sootstein ran on heat from the ground, harvested from geysers by Sootstein’s genius engineers. There were no engineers shoveling coal into the burning belly of a furnace to propel it forward. With every inch this train moved, it did it in tandem with the earth.
When I got to the colony, I couldn’t believe how many people were at the station waiting for the train to arrive. At first, I thought they might have been wanting to catch the train on its return journey, and were just impatient to leave. Instead, I saw guys wrapped up in furs, thrusting banners above their heads that said things like ‘Rocket Ronnie – Light a fire up their asses!’ This referred to Ronnie ‘Rocket’ Glamarsh, a gold-rated soloist who was steadily earning popularity. He’d been in the first carriage of the train, surrounded by so many members of his entourage that I was surprised he could breathe. No, the people in the train station weren’t waiting to leave Sootstein. They were impatiently awaiting the arrival of the VBR fighters. It was like they’d been waiting for our arrival all their lives.
Later, after I had left the train, stored my gear, and had a few hours to kill, I went into a bar called The Icepick. This was a bar made entirely of ice, and you had to wear a special ice-coat so that you could sit on the furniture without getting your ass stuck to it.
On a wall above the bar, a gel-screen played a public information broadcast. It showed an obviously-drunk man falling into one of the many ice lakes around Sootstein. A narrator spoke as the man flailed around in the icy water.
“Step one when you find yourself in ice water; do not panic. When you fall in the water your body may seize up in shock, but it is important to keep calm, as this will pass.”
I watched the broadcast for a few minutes and gained valuable advice on what to do if I ever fell through ice and into freezing water. Not that I’d ever need it; the broadcast was aimed at VBR spectators who’d get drunk before, during, and after the battle, and might end up wandering onto one of the lakes to fool around on the ice.
I paid for a beer and then turned away from the bar to find a table. You can imagine my surprise when I saw a familiar face there. At one of the ice tables, with a plate of foul-smelling raw fish in front of him, was Rynk. It was coincidence enough to bump into him here, given that there were two other big VBRs happening at the same time in different areas of the country, but that wasn’t the weirdest thing. The thing that surprised me most was that I was kinda glad to see Rynk, the shifty guy who’d do anything to make a few easy bits, the guy who always seemed to be eating, no matter where he was or what he was doing.
I bought an extra beer for Rynk and then I sat across from him. We chatted for a while, and I asked what the deal was in Sootstein.
“Why’d they treat us like gods back at the train station?” I said. “Did you see it?”
Rynk stabbed his fork into a piece of white fish. The smell that came off his plate was unbearable. He spoke between chews. “Putrefied shark,” he told me, pointing at the fish. “Want to try some?”
“No thanks,” I said. Disgusting foods weren’t my thing. Why did some people pride themselves on stuffing the foulest food possible into their mouths? I’d heard of people eating tuna eyeballs out east, and, in some parts of the world, tarantulas were considered a delicacy. No, thanks. Not for me. The only games I ever played with my food were when Bill and I were younger, and we found the chili plants Dad was growing. We took turns eating as many raw chilis as we could. When your eyes watered, you lost. But petrified shark? Nah. I’d pass that.
<
br /> “Thought you were a braver man than that,” said Rynk. “It’s delicious.”
“When did you get here?”
“Yesterday. And the crowd was just as insane.”
“Why’s it such a big deal?”
“The guys here,” said Rynk, “the ones working in the colony, they sign contracts agreeing that they’ll be away from their families for half a year at a time. Sometimes more. The nearest town’s a hundred miles away across a frozen tundra, and their heat train only runs twice a year to fetch people here and take them home, with a few extra journeys that are only for VBRers. There’s nothing to do here, Harry, except scratch your balls and work.”
“I guess people do what they’ve gotta do to feed their families.”
“And that’s why so many fresh-faced guys and girls strap into their gel-capsules and play fight on virtual fields,” said Rynk. “They’re doing what they’ve gotta do. Or that’s what they tell themselves. See, the real reason is that they want violence. They want to shove a sword through someone’s belly without repercussion. And the people sitting at home? They’re no different. Sure, some of them call it entertainment. But it ain’t that. It’s gratification. They’ve got a need deep down to look at death from a safe distance and see what happens.”
“Maybe you’re overthinking it,” I said.
“The cosmos is a sea, and we’re caught up in the tide. Prot-layers, gel-screens… They’re all just life jackets. The planet wants us out, Harry. And it ain’t subtle about it. Can you think of a clearer way to say ‘get the hell out of here,’ than by turning sunlight into molten death rays?”
“We did that. Not the planet. The ozone didn’t break itself.”
“There’s nothing but a huge, gaping blankness,” said Rynk, “and the best thing you can do is just swim into it. Fight your fights, let your life ebb away year by year, and then surrender to the ever-lasting nothingness that’s waiting at the end.”
“When you put it like that, I guess it’s a pretty lonely gig out here.”
“And ours isn’t?” said Rynk.
“What do you mean?”
“C’mon, partner. I saw the Bernli loops. You got shafted. And now you’re soloing a bard. Was there ever a more apt word for our profession than soloing?”
“What happened to your team? Bassinger, wasn’t it?”
Rynk set his fork on his now-empty plate and pushed it to one side. He picked up his beer and drained half the glass in one gulp. “I was filling a slot for them. Their scout got sick before the VBR, and I stepped in. Listen, nobody cares about anyone else in VBR, Harry. Your mistake in Bernli wasn’t getting screwed over. It was believing that nobody would do it.”
I thought about Sera and the others, and then about an older betrayal, one that happened when Lucas lived with us. Maybe Rynk was right. Perhaps deceit was the default for the human soul, and anyone who didn’t practice it was battling against their inner nature.
“I guess I just trusted them.”
“We’re a cosmic accident, my friend,” said Rynk. “You, me, Overseer Sternbuck, the lady tending the bar over there. Don’t get caught up in it. Take a page from my book. I’m a de-existentialist.”
I changed the topic of conversation. “So, you’re soloing now?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. I was going to try for the New Eden VBR, but there’s more money to be made off the battle map than on it if you’re clever enough. You catch my drift?”
“Not really.”
“My advice to you is to find yourself another team. You’re never going to solo a bard into the New Eden BR.”
“How’d you even know I was playing a bard?”
Rynk stood up. He finished his beer, slammed the glass on the ice counter, and then grabbed mine and drained that, too. “You need to keep a clear head,” he said. “See ya around, partner.”
“Why do you always say ‘partner’?” I asked.
He fixed me a strange look. “Ever see a Western? Y’know, the movies?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Then educate yourself,” said Rynk
Two hours later, I was in the Sootstein VBR fighter’s mess. Places like this were usually a loud affair at first, with all the fighters chatting with each other, making threats and jokes, and bragging. It was a hubbub of conversation. Then, as the battle drew closer, the place would quieten. People would connect their avatars to mainnet sockets and make last-minute adjustments to them.
Every town that hosted VBRs had their own avatar shops where players could spend bits on rare pieces of clothing and physical attributes to adorn their in-game images with. Some even had rare runes that you could only buy there. Sootstein, for example, sold an ice rune for 240 bits, which granted you a 25% damage reduction from cold damage.
While the bank of mainnet sockets was filled by players eagerly altering their appearance, other parts of the mess were occupied by players with more serious business. A gold player over in the corner, Herelius Tinan (I heard that his real name was Brian and that he’d changed his name to something that sounded tougher) was surrounded by his entourage of coaches and strategists, and he nodded sagely at the advice that came at him from all angles.
Over in the corner nearest me, a woman was sat on a wooden bench. She had a face paler than the tables back in the ice bar, and her long pigtails seemed stretched too harshly back on her head. She was singing something, but I couldn’t place the song. All the same, I liked the tune. I wandered over to her so that I could listen better. Before a battle, I needed to keep myself occupied. I never bought cosmetics for my avatar, and I never plugged into the mainnet to look up last-minute strategies. My take on it was that if you needed to look up tactics an hour before the battle, then you weren’t prepared enough in the first place.
As I stood near the woman, I lifted my wrist toward her and mentally navigated my holo-menu.
Donate bits? Y/N
I selected ‘yes’ and sent a few bits her way. A chiming sound told me the donation had been successful.
The woman stopped singing mid-lyric. She looked at me strangely.
“Did you just send me five bits?”
“I liked the song,” I said.
“You know this isn’t one of those…exotic parlors, right?”
“Jesus. Can’t a guy do something nice without there being a seedy element to it?”
She smiled. “I’m just screwing with ya. I’m Glora Laura.”
“Harry Wollenstein.”
“Wollenstein… I know your name from somewhere. Did you have a vid trending not long ago?”
I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach. The Bernli Betrayal, as one feed blogger had called it, had garnered some attention on the mainnet. “Nope, you must be thinking of someone else,” I told her.
“Hey, Glora! Found a boyfriend at last? Good on ya!” This voice belonged to a man who had just emerged from my right. He looked a couple of years younger than me. He had fire-red hair that he’d groomed to perfection, so much so that he looked like he could have been in a boy band. He smiled wide, and something told me that there was something genuine about it.
I pointed my wrist at him, and my mainnet connection displayed the publicly-available information about him. His name was Eddie Hazzard, and he was the captain of team Perlshaw, an upper-coal-level team. With a twist of my wrist, I saw that Glora was also in team Perlshaw.
Next to Eddie was a brute of a man, even bigger than Vorm. He wore a coat of furs, with a hood fashioned to make it look like a wolf pelt. I guessed it was fake, but it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that he’d strangled a wolf with his bare hands and then skinned it to make a fashionable garment. The guy looked like he could snap my neck in two with a squeeze of his hand. Strangely, when I pointed my wrist at him, the mainnet couldn’t bring up any information on him.
Despite his fearsome size, he grinned at me. When he spoke, his voice was a little higher-pitched than I’d expected. “You the new guy?” he asked me.
> “New guy?”
Eddie Hazzard flashed me a whiter-than-white smile. “We’re a fighter short. Felicia, our support, got the flu. The team match is in an hour, and we’re one card short of a deck.” Then he looked at the big man. “This isn’t him, Wolfy,” he said.
Wolfy looked me up and down. “Nah, didn’t think so.”
With the VBR less than an hour away, it was time to leave Glora, Eddie, and Wolfy and go attend to the important things. Although the gel-capsules we went into during a battle took care of the human essentials, I always had a ritual of attending to calls of nature before a battle. It was just one of my things. Like a footballer who always wore the same socks before a game, I had my little rituals.